Super Bowl Betting 101

2017 Super Bowl Bets and Super Bowl LI Betting

Every year, roughly $10,000,000,000 is bet on the
Super Bowl worldwide. The world-famous NFL championship
game is the single biggest betting event every single
year, with an estimated 200 hundred million people
making wagers on the outcome of the game.

Las Vegas takes a lot of those bets, but much of the
wagering takes place in office pools and at Super Bowl
parties throughout the country. Even if you aren't a
sports gambler, anyone watching the Super Bowl is likely
to end up placing a side bet or entering some kind of
betting pool at their Super Bowl watching party. This is
a way to get people involved and interested who don't
watch much NFL football and may not care too much who
wins.

Super Bowl Betting Basics

That's who several of the articles on this website
are meant to teach. I assume the reader here knows
nothing about the National Football League and
especially placing wagers on the outcome of sporting
events. I'll discuss the terminology of American
football betting and super bowl bets, providing a basic
glossary of gambling terms and football definitions so
you'll understand what's being talked about. I'll also
provide background on famous Super Bowl wagers of the
past, along with an analysis of historical trends. In
certain articles, I'll also provide an explanation of
the certain types of common sports bets and party
proposition bets, so you know what the options are
before you pull out your wallet.

Super Bowl 2017 Odds and Lines

Many people who first look at the
odds on a game and assume the team with the minus
sign is the underdog. Either that, or they look at the
lines and give up even trying to figure out what the
handicapping notations mean. Even worse is the moneyline
betting which tries to simplify things by getting rid of
the betting line. I've noticed the moneyline sometimes
confuses experienced sports gamblers who're more used to
reading the Las Vegas
pointspread out of the local newspaper. I'll devote
an entire page to each of these concepts and explain in
easy-to-understand terms exactly how each of these works
and what you should be searching for. When I'm finished
and the Superbowl betting is explained, you'll have a
good idea of which bet you want to test your luck upon.

Super Bowl Futures - All-Year NFL Betting

You'll also learn that 2015 Super Bowl betting isn't just
something you do over Super Bowl weekend. Las Vegas
sportsbooks set lines on Super Bowl futures months
before the NFL regular season even starts. Before the
National Football League teams even enter training camp
and start their preseason schedule, Vegas casinos are
taking wagers on Super Bowl futures, which are bets on
probable Super Bowl winners for the next season. As you
read this, Super Bowl XLVII bets are being placed on who
becomes the NFL champion for the 2012-2015 season. All
the favorites from last year enter the new year's
betting as favorites and the champion is often the
odds-on favorite, but anyone who watches the NFL knows
there aren't that many repeats for last year's Super
Bowl winner. I'll discuss value betting and how to pick
both favorites and longshots when making NFL futures
bets.

Super Bowl Pointspread - Super Bowl Over & Under

When you get to Super Bowl week, most of the betting
involves the two most common football wagers: on the
point spread and on the
over/under. The point spread is the basic football
bet. One team is the favorite and the other is the
underdog. Bookmakers decide how many points the underdog
should be given to get an equal number of bets on either
side of the equation, which is called "setting a line".
If a sportsbook believes that half the people will bet
on the Patriots and half on the Giants if the New
England Patriots are installed as 7-point favorite, then
the Patriots are listed at -7 and the New York Giants
are listed at +7. In other words, the Patriots would
have to win by seven for a push, so they would have to
win by 8 or more to win the bet. At the same time, the
New York Giants could either win outright or lose by 6
or less points to win the wager. If the Pats beat the
Giants by 7, the bet would be a push.

What you should remember is the betting line isn't
meant to be Las Vegas's prediction of who they think is
going to win and by how much, but how they think the
public is going to bet the game. An oddsmaker wants to
make sure roughly one half bets one way and the other
half the other way, because that assures the sports book
wins off of the juice--that is, the fee a person pays in
order to make the wager. That's why you'll see the line
move throughout Super Bowl week, as gamblers bet more on
one side of the spread or another. I'll discuss this in
greater detail in the "Super Bowl Odds & Lines" article.

The Over & Under bet is about how many total points
are going to be scored in a game. This takes out whether
a team wins or not and replaces it with the prediction
of how high scoring the game is going to be. If a game
has an Over/Under of 44, it's doesn't matter if the game
is 24-21 or 45-0 to the person who bets the over, so
long as the combined points are 45 or more. The same
thing goes for the gambler who chooses the under bet. If
the total points equal 43 or under, that person wins the
bet. Many betters prefer this bet, because it often
keeps the game interesting from a money perspective
without requiring them to bet against their favorite
team or because they think it's easier to predict. The
professional bookmakers are pretty darn good at setting
the Over/Under bet, too.

2015 Super Bowl Prop Bets

Super Bowl proposition bets become more speculative,
but often pay off at a higher rate. Examples of
prop bets would be who
scores the first touchdown, who wins the Super Bowl MVP
Award, which teams kicks the most field goals, or even
whether the coin toss is heads or tails. Name any moment
in the Super Bowl presentation, from the halftime show
to the Super Bowl commercials, and you're likely to see
a prop bet involving that event. These prop bets tend to
be posted at online sportsbooks and in Las Vegas once
the two Super Bowl teams are determined, after the AFC
and NFC Championship Games. That means they are
late-breaking bets you can make in the two weeks before
the Super Bowl. But even if you forget to make these
wagers, that doesn't mean it's too late to getting
involved in gambling. It's never too late to bet on
Super Bowl.

Super Bowl Party Bets

Those who waited too late to get in on the Super Bowl
season bets, betting line, or prop bets shouldn't worry.
That's because most Super Bowl watching parties I've
ever been to had side bets, betting pools, and other
proposition wagers on the table to keep things
interesting.

Betting on Superbowl 2015

That's the briefest of overviews. If after reading
this basic guide to Super Bowl bets and betting you have
any questions, stay around and read the expanded content
to get your full answers. I want to cover each type of
Super Bowl wager in full detail in its own article, so
this site eventually will be a comprehensive guide to
Super Bowl wagers.